


Stranger than fiction

by pixiedurango



Series: Richard Armitage - Sensual Visual Prompts [10]
Category: Lucas North - Fandom, Richard Armitage - Fandom, Spooks | MI-5
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, F/M, Fluff, Morning Cuddles, Morning Sex, Reading Aloud
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 22:18:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17211863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixiedurango/pseuds/pixiedurango
Summary: Lucas North and his girlfriend spend a cozy night reading to each other and a not less cozy morning after. Of course there is no Lucas without some sad broodiness and a pinch of angst.Also included are some references that evolve around the relevance of the William Blake and the Great Red Dragon" to more than one of the characters RA portrayed.





	Stranger than fiction

**Author's Note:**

> This belongs to a collection of prompts I opened up for my followers on tumblr to choose a character portrayed by Richard Armitage and a collection of sensual/sexy gifs I put together merely for this purpose.  
> After the tumblr purge many of the stories got banned/deleted/hidden which I assume due to the nature of the gifs since the stories itself are rarely really explicit.  
> This is why I eventually decided to transfer my works to my Ao3 which I didn't do for the sheer number of Fandoms/Shows/Characters those stories belong to. My admiration for Richard Armitage let me write all those stories and I hope people will like it.  
> The gifs will be posted along with the stories so readers might decide whether I caught the spirit or not.

>  
> 
> _“…At forty, he could have competed successfully in regional body-building competition._
> 
> _He was not satisfied.  
> _ _Within the week he came upon the Blake painting. It seized him instantly._
> 
> _He saw it in a large, full-color photograph in Time magazine illustrating a report on the Blake retrospective at the Tate Museum in London. The Brooklyn Museum had sent The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun to London for the show.  
> _ _Time’s critic said: “Few demonic images in Western art radiate such a nightmarish charge of sexual energy …"_
> 
> _Dolarhyde didn’t have to read the text to find that out._
> 
> _He carried the picture with him for days, photographed and enlarged it in the darkroom late at night. He was agitated much of the time. He posted the painting beside his mirror in the weight room and stared at it while he pumped. He could sleep only when he had worked out to exhaustion and watched his medical films to aid him in sexual relief._
> 
> _He had known since the age of nine that essentially he was alone and that he would always be alone, a conclusion more common to the forties._  
>  _Now, in his forties, he was seized by a fantasy life with the brilliance and freshness and immediacy of childhood._  
>  _  
> It took him a step beyond Alone. At a time when other men first see and fear their isolation, Dolarhyde’s became understandable to him: he was alone because he was Unique.  
> _ _With the fervor of conversion he saw that if he worked at it, if he followed the true urges he had kept down for so long-cultivated them as the inspirations they truly were - he could Become._
> 
> _The Dragon’s face is not visible in the painting, but increasingly Dolarhyde came to know how it looked.” *_

  
The warm baritone voice stopped reading aloud.   
Lucas North chuckled while he wrapped the girl next to him closer into his arm.    
“I still can’t believe, you brought me a book where the obvious bad guy is… some kind of weird  _fan_  of  'The Great Red Dragon…‘“ 

The apartment was dark and their resting place, his bed, the only island of light as it was already past midnight. They had been laying for hours now, taking turns in reading after she had brought him the novel as a gift from one of her business trips where she stumbled over it at the airport bookstore while killing time between two flights.  
  
“You won’t believe it but people write crime stories about the weirdest of things. Once I stumbled upon a novel where a woman was committing murder, inspired by a fragrance.” She giggled and by cocking her neck a little he could catch a glimpse before she hid her face at his shoulder as she was blushing and her voice sounded muffled when she continued to speak. “I actually owned that perfume back then and it was the most weird of thoughts that somewhere an author smelled that same thing and came to think:  _'Ohhhh…. nice! I’m going to write a bloody murder story centering around a woman who goes mad whenever she smells that._ ’ “    
  
Lucas suppressed a sigh and chuckled instead.   
“I agree, that’s really weird.” His fingers were trailing idly through her hair as he lifted the book again to continue their reading. She knew nothing about what a dark place human mind could become and for her own good he wished she would never have to learn. 

Modern crime stories were not his favorite, knowing the real world was a thousand times more violent and mad. But for the sake of her sweet thought and - he had to admit it - the fact that a painting of his favorite artist, a painting which actually was hanging in his apartment right now and had always been the first thing to hang to a wall where ever he had been moving, this being the core piece of a story had been appealing to him.  
  
Good thing was, they both were off duty the upcoming day so they could actually indulge into late night reading until both their voices were a little hoarse but the book was actually done.

“Unbelievable, we did it in one sitting.” She murmured sleepily, when he finally closed the book and carefully put it on his night stand.

Lucas turned to her so they would face each other and softly caressed her face. “We were very determined.” He smiled at her. “I like that.”

“Are we still…  _determined_?” she smiled back and a tiny mischievous smirk curled her lips. But he could see how tired she was and so he just closed the little remaining gap between them for a soft lingering kiss. She was all soft and warm and she emitted so much peace he could barely breathe and wanted to drown in it at the same time.   
  
Finding rest and actually feel calm enough to sleep a few hours straight was a great gift for him and thus  _she_  was, because next to her sleep always came easier and lasted longer.

“Only determined to sleep, I assume.” He answered and when she calmly nodded he shut down the light and they curled up into each other to find a few hours of rest.

~ ~ ~  
  


The warm sun was already dancing in bright stripes on the blanket when they opened their eyes again and the quiet intimacy from waking up still closely wrapped into each other turned quickly into some indulgent lazy morning sex.

Taking their time and finding their breath again. No one would ask for him today, he hoped so he would be able to simply enjoy this day off with her. They could go for a walk later or just stay in bed as long as they pleased. But first:  
“Coffee?”   
  
“Perfect idea. And some kind of… breakfast?” she agreed while they slowly got up.

Teasingly he poked her side. “I thought you already had your breakfast.”

She grabbed one of his white t-shirts and slipped into it. Big enough to work as a mini dress, she decided she was dressed enough and definitely in a giggly mood to return his poke.

“We’ll need some energy if we plan to spend the day like we started it.”

“Clever girl!” He laughed while he slipped into his sweat pant and he wrapped his arm around her shoulder while they were finally walking over into his kitchen.

Having herself pulled up to sit onto the kitchen counter with her mug in her hands was she watching him making himself busy by preparing some scrambled eggs and toasting some bread. It was a good sight and she clearly enjoyed it as he realized.

He came back to her once the table was set, his own coffee at hand and let her wrap her arms around him to pull him into a sweet kiss that tasted like coffee and all the things to come later.

Lucas realized once more that she was some kind of an island of peace in life which was so fucked up in so many ways.   
She had no idea that she was.   
And he could not tell her. Not willing to pull her down into his world of darkness, death and intrigues.   
She was a bright and sunny girl, working somewhere in the city for a little public-relations agency and there was no way of dragging her with him into his personal abyss. He would continue to tell her he was working in  _'IT security’_  without ever diving into details.

They were seeing each other for a few weeks now and he just enjoyed a few hours now and then where he could feel just like an average guy with an average girlfriend, doing average things.   
She had been a bit taken aback when she had seen his tattoos for the first time but he had been able to convince her with a story of a past military career which had brought him to some weird places which hopefully would kind of explain the Russian prison tattoos on him since she was not stupid enough to not recognize the style.   
  
He had given her the broody sad guy not wanting to discuss his past about that matters and so she stopped prying at some point.

Lies, lies, lies. Nothing but lies. Lucas was so tired sometimes from this but then he had no idea what else to do without giving her a full briefing, which probably would chase her off immediately. She loved crime stories, yes, but only the fictional ones. Lucas was convinced the minute she would know, it would be too much for her to bear. 

And selfish as he was, he did not want to lose her. And so he kept on lying. Because there was always a price to pay. A sacrifice to make. His here was honesty.

 

*  _“The Red Dragon by Thomas Harris pages 148/149_

  
  



End file.
